Duke Looks Like a Groomsman - Valerie Bowman Page 0,70
life.”
Rhys shook his head and narrowed his eyes on his friend. Kendall wasn’t making any sense tonight. “What the devil are you talking about, man? She humiliated you. You were devastated.”
“You’re right, but it doesn’t change the fact that if Lady Emily hadn’t done what she did, I wouldn’t have Frances now. I’m much happier with Frances than I ever could have been with Emily.”
Rhys leaned back and rubbed both of his temples. The room was spinning, and nothing made sense any longer. “She did you an act of kindness?”
“A considerable act of kindness. If I run across her one day, I intend to thank her, actually. Don’t you see, Worth? If she had married me without loving me, she would have done me the greatest disservice of all. I’d have been stuck with her for life. Frances loves me for who I am. That’s the greatest gift and well worth the temporary humility I felt about Emily tossing me over.”
Rhys shook his head, trying to ensure he interpreted his friend’s words correctly. “So, if Julianna tossed over Murdock, she might be doing him an act of kindness.”
Kendall lifted both shoulders. “If she doesn’t love him, she would be.”
Rhys’s heart thumped in his chest. Why had he never seen it this way before?
“What’s more,” Kendall continued.
Rhys sank back into his chair and stared at his friend. “There’s more?”
“Yes, the difference between your situation and mine with Lady Emily is that you and Julianna had feelings for each other before she became engaged to Murdock. She actually cared for you before she met him, which means it’s highly likely that were she to pick you, she would be choosing you for true love and not your title.”
Rhys allowed the words he’d just heard to sink into his addled brain. It was true. He had known Julianna before she’d met the Marquess of Murdock. He had had feelings for her then, and she had had them for him. She’d said as much.
Rhys lurched to his feet and swiped his hair away from his forehead. “By God, man, I do believe I finally understand.”
Kendall inclined his head toward Rhys. “Excellent. I’m thrilled to hear it, because you’ve been acting like a complete horse’s arse for weeks.”
Rhys lurched across the desk and grabbed Kendall by the cravat. “Good God. What day is it?”
Kendall pulled Rhys’s hand away and gave him a skeptical look. “You truly don’t know?”
“Is it the fifteenth? She’s getting married the morning of the fifteenth.” His throat was dry and true panic coursed through his veins.
“You’re in luck,” Kendall replied with a grin. “It’s the fourteenth.”
Rhys whirled around to stare at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was nearly midnight, which meant he only had a matter of hours to find her. Find her and somehow convince her to marry him. Because he may have made the biggest mistake of his life twice in the last eighteen months, but damned if he was going to make it a third time.
“I have to talk to her, Kendall. I must find her.” Rhys turned and dashed toward the door.
“Do you really think it’s best to go now? You’re inebriated, old chap,” Kendall said, following his friend down the corridor toward the front door.
“I’ve no time to waste.” Rhys grabbed his coat, hat, and gloves from the shocked-looking butler and ripped open the front door. “Just point me in the direction of Montlake’s town house.”
Kendall rolled his eyes. “I’m entirely certain I’m going to regret telling you this, but now that I think of it, Frances did mention something about Lady Julianna wanting a man who’d jump on a sideboard in front of the Prince Regent for her.”
Rhys turned to stare at him, his brow tightly furrowed. “What? What are you saying?”
Kendall sighed. “I’m saying you’ll need to make a grand gesture if you’re going to win here back, so I’ll do better than pointing you in the right direction. I’ll take you there myself.”
He asked the butler to have his coach brought round and pulled on his own coat.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Rhys nearly jumped from Kendall’s coach before it came to a complete stop across from the Duke of Montlake’s town house. He righted himself and then ran across the road and up the steps of the imposing structure.
Kendall followed close behind, obviously keeping an eye on his drunken friend.
Rhys rapped on the door loud and long until an equally imposing butler answered the summons.
“May I help you?” The butler obviously remembered Rhys from his